Rene Grasso: Scott Brown, The Making of the Great Impostor

Friday, September 07, 2012

Rene Grasso, Guest MINDSETTER™

Scott Brown is not the moderate he claims to be. His voting record shows he uses his Massachusetts Senate seat to obstruct Democratic legislation, that 100 percent of the time he votes for the GOP economic agenda. He hopes to hide the facts with a campaign that spreads a blatantly false image of independence.

Brown, bi-partisan? Not even close!

Brown was elected in 2010 with substantial Tea Party support. It should come as no surprise that his voting record is as darkly ruinous as a clear-cut mountain side: Brown always votes to deny help and support to "We, the People," the 98 percent. He always votes to protect 2 percent of the population from even minimal tax increases, and he votes, always, to sacrifice the needs of "We, the People"—the 98 percent—the jobs, benefits and protection against more fraud that we need.

Brown votes for unrestrained freedom for corporations and for Wall Street hedge fund managers, bankers, and speculators. We the people, the 98 percent, are suffering from foreclosures, a devastated housing market, unemployment, stagnant wages, impoverished schools and communities largely due to the failure of regulatory system to restrain and discipline and hold accountable Wall Street and the Big Banks.

Since the meltdown in 2008, the criminal and fraudulent activities of the financial institutions have continued. But Scott Brown says, “I'm all in favor of just holding back [from regulation] and letting private enterprise try to get us out of this mess.“

His voting record shows he means with he says.

Brown voted against the DISCLOSE Act, a bill to lessen the influence of big business on elections , and respecting voters’ basic right to know who is behind the money being spent in their elections, as the Supreme Court made clear in the Citizens United decision.

Earlier in 2012, even as oil corporations like Exxon reported record-making profits and ordinary Americans were hemorrhaging real wages, Brown voted to maintain $24 billion in tax-payer subsidies for Exxon, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Shell.

This vote effectively violated his pledge for no tax increases.

As for protecting “We, the People” from another bank-driven fiasco, Brown is on the phones and in backrooms trying to weaken the Volker segments in the Dodd-Frank Act, the provisions designed to prevent the banks from creating catastrophe.

The Brown campaign ignores the differences between Brown’s service to big corporations and Wall Street and his alleged support for small business.

He voted against the Creating American Jobs Act in 2010, which would have rewarded companies that hire Americans to replace off-shore jobs and take away tax credits from corporations that encourage out-sourcing of American jobs.

He voted twice to filibuster the Small Business Jobs & Credit Act, a bill that connected growing small businesses to credit through community banks and offered significant tax credits to small firms that create American jobs.

When his obstruction failed, Brown voted to kill the legislation. The Massachusetts Bankers Association stated that failure to act on the bill "would be a missed opportunity that our struggling economy cannot afford."

No wonder, as Forbes Magazine reports, Wall Street loves Scott Brown and that his top five donors are insurance corporations, and the largest by far, the financial industry giants like Goldman Sachs.

Brown’s record in the Senate allows voters to connect the dots and fully reveal Brown the GOP extremist who believes in the doctrine of little taxation for the richest, big breaks for the wealthiest corporations, and irresponsible freedom for corporate profit-making, no matter its shattering effects.

Brown votes, without exception, to protect millionaires and billionaires from even minimal taxes, always showing his willingness to sacrifice jobs, public education, a level economic playing field for working and middle-class families, justice for women, and the well-being of senior citizens in order to serve the wealthiest 2 percent.

His record paints a stark portrait of his pro-wealth, anti-middle class politics. Brown voted against the American Jobs Act of 2011, losing Massachusetts 16,000 new jobs. He said “No” to extending unemployment benefits for 170,000 Massachusetts residents, and “No” to measures that prevented lay-offs and encouraged new hires. “No” to all these improvements for ordinary Americans because Brown objected to the bill’s 0.7-percent tax hike on annual salaries over $1 million.

Then, “No” again to the Rebuild America Jobs Act, costing Massachusetts alone 11,000 jobs as well as $850,000 in funds to improve the state’s infrastructure. Why? Brown refused the price of these benefits: a 0.5-percent tax on annual salaries above one million.

Brown, again, voted against the Teachers and First Responders Back to Work Act. Massachusetts lost 6,300 educators and firefighters, leaving our public schools less robust and our communities less safe. Again, because the cost was too high: a 0.5-percent tax increase on annual salaries of $1 million or more.

Brown voted twice to permit interest on student loans to double. He voted against funding 7,000 jobs for the state’s youth. Then, Senator Brown, public servant, refused to meet with young people who came to plead with him.

Brown voted against the Paying a Fair Share Act. “No,” he said, to a 30-percent tax on income exceeding $1 million. He voted against the Sense of the Senate on Shared Sacrifice, thus directly acknowledging the he doesn’t believe the wealthiest should pay a greater share of taxes.

Apparently, it’s just fine with Brown that Mitt Romney, who makes $20 million annually, pays 13 percent in taxes, less than a family of 4 with a salary of $50,000.

Logically, then, Brown said “No” to the Middle Class Tax Act in 2011. Ninety-eight percent of Americans would benefit from lower taxes, with an average of $2,200 in extra funds to spend and feed the economy. Small business would maintain lower tax rates and tax credits to spur hiring. But Brown could not accept that the 2 percent who earn over $250,000 would go back to their 1990 tax rates.

Scott Brown voted to filibuster legislation to extend the payroll tax cut for working families. In effect, he voted to hold low- and middle-income workers hostage to shield the wealthiest Americans from a small surtax on income over $1 million. Brown cast a deciding vote to raise taxes on 113 million working families. In Massachusetts, the surtax would have affected just 0.6% of taxpayers with an average income of more than $2 million.

If we look at the statistics, Brown voted 93.8 percent of the time in accord with the GOP and with obstruction politics. This dropped to 80.5 percent after Elizabeth Warren entered the Senate race.

The arithmetic illuminates the strategy. The 13.3 percent difference measures the impact of Warren’s challenge. When he votes out of line with his usual GOP commitments, never in a decisive vote, Brown is depending upon voters’ ignorance of the issues he breaks rank with, their timing, and their relationship to his whole record. .

Republican Scott Brown fits his party membership in spades. Republican Brown is hiding the indisputable facts of his record in a campaign strategy of deceiving people into voting for his manufactured, totally false image.

Rene Grasso, PhD, is a feminist scholar and writer.